


Camera Obscura

by etotakatsuki



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Angst, Break Up, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-21
Updated: 2016-07-21
Packaged: 2018-07-25 18:19:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7543057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/etotakatsuki/pseuds/etotakatsuki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kaneki used to believe it had been inevitable, something that had always been destined to happen. The easy way they’d slipped across the line between friends and lovers proved that.</p><p>Now, as he sits hunched in his bed, he knows the end had been inevitable too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Camera Obscura

**Author's Note:**

> I like break up fics and there are not enough so I wrote my own.
> 
> Also this was supposed to be a breaking-up-and-making-up fic but it's been sitting half done in my drafts for months and let's face it, I'm never gonna write the making up part. So here it is. The break up. Don't say I didn't warn you.

It started with a joke. An off-hand comment, not to be taken seriously, made to lighten a painful truth. A decade spent dancing around a hidden fact, only to have it come to the surface so abruptly, change things so completely. 

These days, Kaneki wonders if he should have laughed it off.

-

“Man, you work fast!” Hide had laughed, scratching the back of his head, when Kaneki told him about his future first date. 

Kaneki smiled, blushed, felt awkward and elated. He opened his mouth to scold Hide, but then --

“I guess I missed my chance.”

Kaneki froze, and Hide took a few more steps before he realized Kaneki had stopped following. He turned, and tried to mask his nerves with concern.

“Kaneki, are you --”

“What did you say, Hide?” Kaneki interrupted, voice wavering. But he knew, as soon as the words left Hide’s lips. He’d known.

“I was just kidding around,” Hide tried, plastering on his signature grin. Kaneki didn’t allow himself to be fooled. It was a joke, without a doubt. But Hide’s jokes always held an element of truth, too sharp to be said plainly.

“Did you mean...?” Kaneki asked, and his expression must have given something away, because instead of brushing it off the way Hide was so prone to do, Hide smiled. A genuine smile. The one he reserved just for Kaneki. And the fondness in his eyes made Kaneki feel like melting.

“Yeah,” he answered warmly. “I did.”

-

It had been easy at first, so easy to slip into their new roles. A decade of friendship fell into a romance in a progression that felt so natural, so  _ right _ , they were both left laughing and wondering why it had taken them so long.

It had been easy to let simple touches linger, a brush of their shoulders that neither moved away from, a hug that lasted for longer and longer breaths. It had been easy to close that small distance between them, after ages spent hovering just far enough apart. To finally lean forward, and feel Hide’s breath merge with his.

Kaneki recalls how it felt when Hide kissed him for the first time, and squeezed his hand tight so that it hurt. Kaneki recalls the feeling of Hide’s sweaty palm against his, the way Hide’s voice had trembled despite his bravado. He recalls the warmth that swelled in his chest,  that made him feel weightless and heavy at once. He recalls how easy it had been to move forward and kiss him back.

They had fallen into a routine that felt so comfortable, so familiar, Kaneki was sure he’d lived it before. Waking side by side, and starting every morning by laughing together over breakfast. Planning to meet for precious minutes between their classes, and regaling each other with stories of the time they spent apart. Spending evenings huddled together, busy with books or with games. Or just sitting, enjoying the warmth of being together, listening to each other’s breathing.

Kaneki recalls feeling like he could lie there forever, next to Hide, and want for nothing.

-

Now, it takes effort. 

Kaneki doesn’t feel that flutter in his chest when he looks at Hide anymore. He doesn’t feel a smile stretching across his face when he thinks of Hide. He doesn’t spend all his time looking forward to seeing Hide next. Instead, those thoughts only bring a smothering sense of dread.

Kaneki wonders where he went wrong. He loved Hide -- loves Hide still. Loves Hide so much that sometimes he feels like his heart will burst with the weight of it. But it's not enough.

He doesn't know why. Why does Hide avoid him now? Why does he feel relief when Hide doesn't try to force a conversation? Why does he close himself off while the chasm in his chest opens wider with every moment he spends away from Hide, and why does the pain only worsen when he tries to hold Hide the way he used to?

It hits him suddenly one night, while he is laying awake in their bed with the cold distance settling between them, chilling the sheets and biting at his skin. He stares at the ceiling, counting imperfections and wondering if Hide had noticed the change, if it left his heart aching too. And he realizes.

He doesn’t know how Hide feels about this divide between them, because he doesn’t know how Hide feels about him at all. And that’s the problem.

Hide had always shown his affections, rather than voicing them. He made small gestures, like preparing Kaneki’s favorite meal when Kaneki had forgotten to eat from studying for so long, or surprising Kaneki with gifts when he’d had a bad day, or taking care to be more affectionate whenever Kaneki began to question himself.

It had taken some getting used to, at first. When they were younger, Kaneki had been surprised the first few times Hide reacted as if he knew how Kaneki was feeling, even without Kaneki voicing his fears, and took steps to reassure him in just the right ways. But he hadn’t realized how accustomed he’d become to it until Hide slowly stopped. He tries to think of the last time Hide reached out to him like that. He can’t recall.

He glances across the bed, at Hide sleeping beside him, and thinks about reaching out to him this time. It would be so easy, he thinks, to cross that small distance and feel the warmth of Hide’s skin against his again.

He falls asleep willing himself to try.

-

In the morning, Kaneki wakes alone. Hide’s side of the bed is cold.

Kaneki doesn’t have class today, so instead, he stays inside. He cleans. The entire apartment, once, and then again. He cooks a simple meal, eats it, labels and stores the leftovers. Hide still isn’t home.

He settles on the couch, opens a new book, and begins reading.

When Hide returns home that evening, Kaneki is still curled over his book on the couch. He doesn’t look up when Hide passes, silently, toward the bedroom.

When Kaneki finishes his book hours later, Hide is already in bed, facing away from the door. He doesn’t move when Kaneki settles into his own side of the bed.

-

He wakes in the morning and the other side of the bed is empty. He can hear the sounds of Hide cooking breakfast in the kitchen, shuffling around, moving dishes and ingredients. Kaneki considers joining him, trying to eat breakfast together like they used to.

But the thought of sitting at a table across from him, eating in complete silence while they avoid each other’s gaze, keeps him curled in bed.

Kaneki wonders if Hide resents him.

He tries to think of what caused this, of how they ended up here, and he can’t figure it out. 

He'd tried. God, he’d tried so hard.

He had wanted to give everything to Hide, everything he had that was worthy, because Hide deserved it. He never wanted to burden Hide with his pathetic problems. But he ended up doing that somehow anyway. There’s no other explanation. Hide is too good to have ruined them. Hide could never have done this. It must have been Kaneki, somehow, because it always was.

That was the worst part. He had done this, and he didn’t even know how. He’d ruined the best thing that had ever happened to him, and he was too clueless to even realize it until too late.

Kaneki thinks that he would resent himself, if he were Hide.

He hears more shuffling in the kitchen, quiet steps, and then the sound of the door opening, and closing.

-

In the evening, when Hide returns, Kaneki is waiting.

He hears Hide’s laughter outside, and glances through the window and sees Hide waving to friends. Kaneki is hopeful, already planning what to say to Hide when he steps through the door. Maybe he’ll ask about watching their favorite movie again, or going to that noodle stand they both love.

But then he hears the steps up the stairs slowing, becoming heavier, and each one feels like a nail in his heart. He hears the lock click, and then a pause before the handle turns, and any doubt Kaneki had that  _ he _ was the cause of this dissipates.

The door finally swings open, and Hide steps inside, eyes downcast. His bag drops to the floor. Where he used to brighten any room, there is now only tension in his shoulders.

He glances up, as if just noticing Kaneki standing there watching him. “Hey,” he greets softly, and then turns to trudge toward the bedroom.

“What’s wrong?” Kaneki forces himself to ask, voice small.

Hide pauses, shoulders tense, and then turns to give Kaneki his usual smile. Only, it’s grown faded over the years, tired and worn thin. The transparency of the mask makes Kaneki’s heart clench.

“Nothing’s wrong,” Hide replies with fake cheer, and turns back around as quickly as before, hiding himself from Kaneki. So he could drop his act.

Kaneki grasps his shirt, gripping tightly over his heart, as if that would calm the pounding in his chest. “That’s a lie,” he says, and the moment the words leave his lips, the tension in the room shifts.

Neither of them has ever done this before, pointing out when the other is hiding something. Although it’s been easy enough for them to tell for a long time. Kaneki doesn’t know how Hide is going to react, and certainly doesn’t expect the way he does.

Hide’s shoulders slump. He sighs. And his mask falls away completely. With his shoulders sagging, he seems so much smaller. Without his smile, his face seems so much older.

He looks the way Kaneki feels. Fragile, as though his body is full of cracks and crevices branching out like spiderwebs across his skin. Each day brings a new wound, a new pain that sends the cracks digging deeper. He’s been holding himself together for so long, and he thinks he’s reached his limit. Just one more well-placed blow could make him fall apart.

“Hide,” he breathes, gasping for air.  _ What happened to us?  _ he almost asks.  _ Why does this hurt so much? What did I do wrong?  _ He wants to speak, but the fear chokes his words before they leave his throat. He doesn’t want to hear Hide confirming what Kaneki already knows.

“I’m just… tired,” Hide finally says. 

Kaneki understands. He’s tired too. Tired of feeling like this, tired of tiptoeing around each other. Tired of pretending to be fine, to be just like they always were, when everything feels so wrong.

“I’m sorry,” Kaneki breathes in a rush. Because he never meant for Hide to feel like this too. He never wanted this for Hide.

And then Hide turns away from him. “It's okay,” he says, and the way his voice shudders makes Kaneki ache.

“No,” he interrupts, and hears his own voice shaking. “It isn't.”

Hide looks at him, shock written plainly on his face before his expression melts into something forced and neutral. But he stays silent. He doesn't argue. And that tells Kaneki everything he needs to know.

Kaneki holds his breath, trying to steady his breathing and his racing heart. His hands clench into fists at his sides. His chest feels tight, like it’s being crushed. Like the silence in the room has snaked between his ribs to smother his heart under its weight.

“No, it isn’t,” Hide agrees finally, unable to meet Kaneki’s gaze.

And just like that, Kaneki shatters. 

_ It’s true then, _ he thinks. All of it, every secret fear he’d kept buried for so long. He hadn’t imagined it.

He opens his mouth, tries to speak, and only manages to sob. He hiccups, swallowing down the humiliating sound, and he feels another piercing pain in his chest at the way Hide’s fists clench, but he still doesn’t look up.

“Then I guess,” he begins, trying to make his voice sound steadier than he feels. He knows what he has to do -- it’s the only thing he can do, the only way to stop this cycle of misery he’s trapped them in. He hates himself for what he’s going to do, but if it means Hide will one day smile the way he used to, Kaneki would do anything. He takes a breath, braces himself, and says, “This is it.”

He wants to take the words back as soon as he speaks them, as soon as the last syllable slips off his tongue. But he makes himself stay silent. He’s doing this for Hide, he tells himself, even as everything inside of him is begging him to stop. And god, does he want Hide to make him stop.

He wants Hide to scrunch his brows in confusion and tell him that he’s being ridiculous, that they just need to work through whatever this is. He wants Hide to close the distance between them and hold him tight, just the way he used to, and stroke his hair and tell him things aren’t okay now, but they could be. He wants Hide to convince him to stay, to say that he needs Kaneki the way Kaneki needs him, to tell him to take those words back.

That’s what he wants. But he knows that isn’t what Hide is going to say.

Kaneki feels the panic bubbling up his chest when Hide inhales and prepares to speak, because he knows what’s coming next and he doesn’t want to hear it. But he can’t make himself do anything about it. 

He feels like he’s observing from a distance, watching someone else’s life fall apart so completely. It feels inevitable now, like their entire relationship has been building to this one moment, and these words on Hide’s breath.

Hide parts his lips, and the world stops. Kaneki hangs on the precipice, waiting for Hide’s voice to kill the stagnance.

“Yeah,” Hide exhales, and Kaneki feels himself begin to slip -- “I guess you’re right.” -- and fall.

-

It started with a joke, shared with relieved smiles between two friends. Kaneki used to love that.

Kaneki used to believe it had been inevitable, something that had always been destined to happen. And the easy way they’d slipped across the line between friends and lovers proved that.

Now, as he sits hunched in his bed, sobbing into his knees and reliving every moment that lead him here, he knows.

The end had been inevitable too.


End file.
